The Fastest & Most Powerful High-End Gaming Laptops | 2015

With so many games lately that require supercomputers to run at max, it is tempting to get a great gaming computer to run them. Desktop diehards and the Reddit build-it crowd might scoff at the very concept of a portable PC gaming machine, but the gulf between gaming desktops and gaming laptops has narrowed considerably over the years. Laptops have come a long way in the last few years, and good gaming laptops, which once sounded like an oxymoron, are now more widely available. Today’s laptops can play modern games at 1080p and higher with few to no compromises in graphics settings. And that’s not bad.

The fact we must admit of is that gaming laptop is coming of age! It is steadily increasing in popularity as performance quality goes up. Gamers now regularly consider laptops when searching for that perfect gaming machine. With each new generation of laptops we are seeing some novel breakthroughs: dual core laptops, PCI Express, Sonoma Chipset, increased storage, increased RAM, faster CPUs, better battery life and better wireless connections including a Cellular Modem. All welcome news for gamers and laptop lovers alike.

Sure, traditional desktop PCs offer more expansion options and easier upgrade paths, and can be significantly cheaper for the performance you get. But there’s no denying the appeal of a single, self-contained gaming machine that you can move from the living room to the dining room to even the back porch.

Since they’re laptops, they’re also portable, though we use that word in the loosest sense. Even the most attractive, well-built gaming laptops are usually monsters – chunky, heavy and created with marathon gaming sessions in mind.

The Concept of Gaming Laptops

Understanding the concept of gaming laptops and their main features and purposes help you better decide whether they suits you or not.

A gaming laptop is a small, mobile, personal computer with a built-in screen. It’s basically designed to seamlessly play and smoothly handle high-end computer games. Though any laptop can technically be used for gaming, modern gaming laptops usually differ from other models because they contain high-end hardware – a necessity when trying to run the latest graphic- and process-intensive computer games. Because of the high-end hardware of which they are constructed, it is not uncommon for a branded gaming laptop to cost at least three times as much as the same firm’s entry-level laptop models. Moreover, being built with the most advanced hardware makes gaming laptops a perfect choice for those who seek the most powerful laptops for the purpose of editing videos, designing professional 3D graphics, and handling other heavy resource-demanding tasks, such as software coding.

Aesthetically, gaming laptops tend to be less conservative-looking than traditional computers. Many models feature bright colors, metallic finishes, large icons, and prominent ridges that give them a high-tech look. Because they are used in informal settings, some users even customize their gaming laptops with stickers and unique case modifications.

The Top-Performance Gaming Laptop Roundup

In the list below we present our selections of the top performance and highest speed laptops for gaming after researching each listed item and collecting the experts’s verdicts for each laptop. You can view these verdicts below each item in the “more details” section.

XOTIC MSI GT72S Dominator Pro G-219

Alienware is one of most famous brands known for gaming laptops and Alienware 17 (2015) reminds us just that. Launched in October 9, 2015, the new Alienware 17 comes with a price tag of about $2200 and boasts a combination of potent hardware and premium design with majestic display and spacious storage. Alienware 17 (2015) manages to out-perform all other gaming laptops with single GPU setup and is considered one of the best high-end gaming laptops.
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Specifications

Screen Size

17.3 inches

Screen Type

UHD (3840 x 2160 pixels) LED-lit Truelife Screen

Processor

2.6 GHz Core i7 6700HQ 6th Generation

RAM

16 GB DDR4

Hard Drive

1 TB HDD + SDD

Graphics Co-processor

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M with 4GB GDDR5

Chipset Brand

NVIDIA

Graphics Card Ram Size

4

Wireless Type

802.11 A/C

Number of USB 3.0 Ports

3

ASUS ROG G752 Series

ROG G752 comes in three flavors – G752VL with GTX 965M, G752VT with GTX 970M and G752VY with GTX 980M. While G752VY is the ultimate beast out of the three in terms of performance, G752VT and G752VL have a slimmer profile and are lighter for portability.

Finding a machine with top-tier specs, screaming performance and a screen big enough to make you think twice about using an external monitor is easy — but not every high-performance gaming rig is a good laptop. That takes smart design choices, great build quality and attention to detail; all things ASUS’ latest ROG flagship has in spades. The G752’s unique design, excellent keyboard and mouse buttons and sturdy build are what make it stand out from the competition, though admittedly, screaming performance doesn’t hurt either.

Asus has long made a name for itself in the gaming world delivering some of the highest performance hardware available. The 17.3-inch gaming notebook comes as the successor to the flagship ROG G751 and features a radical new design, its own novel cooling system, and sixth-generation Intel Skylake processors to boot.

Eventually, ASUS’ new gaming flagship is everything you could want in an oversized gaming laptop: It’s extremely powerful, well-designed and kitted-out with the latest and greatest graphics technology.

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Official Overview

Specifications

AMD Alienware 17 R3 Series

Alienware is one of most famous brands known for gaming laptops and Alienware 17 (2015) reminds us just that. Launched in October 9, 2015, the new Alienware 17 comes with a price tag of about $2200 and boasts a combination of potent hardware and premium design with majestic display and spacious storage. Alienware 17 (2015) manages to out-perform all other gaming laptops with single GPU setup and is considered one of the best high-end gaming laptops.
View More DetailsHide Details Box

Specifications

Screen Size

17.3 inches

Screen Type

UHD (3840 x 2160 pixels) LED-lit Truelife Screen

Processor

2.6 GHz Core i7 6700HQ 6th Generation

RAM

16 GB DDR4

Hard Drive

1 TB HDD + SDD

Graphics Co-processor

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M with 4GB GDDR5

Chipset Brand

NVIDIA

Graphics Card Ram Size

4

Wireless Type

802.11 A/C

Number of USB 3.0 Ports

3

Why Go for a High-End Gaming Laptop

High-end gaming laptops are not just made exclusively for video games although they are extremely improved to provide the smoothest possible experience in gaming. A high-end gaming laptop would boast of high standards that place it on the highest level of performance in order to handle the graphical and processing requirements of high-end games and this makes them very suitable for other computing tasks that require a robust computer to fulfill them, such as: High Definition (HD) video editing, 3D graphics designing and complex application/program coding that consumes lots of computing resources.

And if you go make a comparison between a gaming laptop and a gaming desktop, you’ll definitely find that the primary advantages of laptops over desktops in general are:

Portability, to the least extent that you can easily move a laptop from a room to another without a hassle and in one go, unlike desktop PCs, even if a high-end gaming laptop is somewhat heavy (around 9 pounds) it’s still lighter in weight than desktops.

Compact size that entitles laptops to engage the minimum space of the place they are put on.

Operating on battery power, which is a highly important potential in some critical cases where desktops fail to be of any avail without electricity.

On the other hand, gaming desktops shine in some aspects over laptops, which are:

Screen Size. When it comes to size, laptop monitors can hardly exceed the 18-inch size (the largest gaming laptop we are aware of, DELL Alienware 18 HD comes in 18.4-inch screen size), while you have a wide variety of monitor sizes in desktop computers.

Upgradability. This is one of the strongest advantages of desktop computers over laptops. Whereas upgrading laptop components is quite limited, it is much easier with desktops to almost being able to upgrade any component you wish.

Performance & Price. Because of their small size, the internal components of a gaming laptop are usually slightly less advanced and much more expensive than similar parts for a desktop computer

You may be interested to watch the following video if you need more elaboration on this issue:

Finding The Most Powerful Gaming Laptop

Generally, gamers are a very demanding group, they know their computers and they know what they want in their computers. Most gamers like to order their gaming laptop with their own specs and configurations. In that light, if you closely examine the main points gamers consider when configuring or building their Dream Machine – you will have a good blueprint for the best gaming machine.

Based on specific key-factors for choosing the most powerful and fastest gaming laptop, we have made a great gaming laptop selection to help you decide which one’s best for you. They’re expensive, though, so before you decide to part with a sizeable wad of cash it’s worth considering what you’re looking for in a gaming laptop.

Main Key Factors to Look for in a Gaming Laptop

Gaming laptops are special because of the performance they manage to pack in a small body. Since laptop technology changes every two years or so, it’s probably wise to purchase a laptop that can be easily upgraded as new products come on line. Unlike desktop PCs you can’t easily or cheaply upgrade the specification of a gaming laptop. Paying for that extra performance now is sensible in the long term. So consider the upgradable factor in any laptop that you plan to buy.

We’ll not be adding the “upgradability” factor in the list below as it has not to do with how a laptop performs or handle games, although it’s one of the most important thing we look for when recommending a gaming laptop.

Key-Factors for the Most Powerful Gaming Laptop

1. Screen Size & Resolution

2. Video Card Performance

3. Central Processing Unit

4. Heat and Sound

5. Hard Drive Configuration

6. RAM Memory Speed & Size

Screen Size & Resolution
For a gaming laptop, 11-, 14-, 15-, 17-, and 18-inch displays are par for the course. You can buy larger displays, but this will jack the weight up on a laptop way beyond 5 pounds. There available 12-pound “portables” in the gaming sector that will definitely weigh down your backpack. A large screen size is desirable so that gamers can see all aspects of the games they are playing. Larger displays are capable of giving you higher-than-1080p HD (1,920-by-1,080) resolutions, but choose wisely as QHD+ (3,200-by-1,800) resolution will boost the final cost twice: first for the panel and second for the higher-quality graphics card to drive it.

Video Card Performance
Modern games are all about 3D graphics, which means the most important component in your gaming laptop will be the graphics card, or GPU (short for graphics processing unit). It allows games to be played with higher graphics settings and with more visual effects enabled. You don’t necessarily require super-high-end Nvidia or AMD graphics in your laptop for a good gaming experience. But when you’re looking at two similar laptops, it’s generally wise to go for the GPU with the highest model number possible. A GTX 990M will be a better choice than the GTX 880M, and so on, down the line.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)
The processor is the brain of the PC – the faster the brain, the better the overall performance will be. The processor is arguably the most important feature of a gaming laptop, both because games can be extremely process-intensive and because a minimum processor type/speed may be required to play a game. At the moment, Intel’s eight-core processors in the Core i7 family top the list in terms of raw processing power. AMD goes bang for the buck with its FX processors, with up to eight cores.

Heat and Sound
Speeds and feeds are important, but it’s also supposed to be cool, to induce a little envy. The cooling on the laptop should at least keep the machine cooled at a safe temperature when running overclocked. Gaming notebooks may be physically huge, but those large chassis sizes can allow for more efficient heat dissipation. The manufacturers can pack in larger heat pipes as well as larger fans running at slower RPMs. This delivers sufficient cooling with less noise.

As for sound, for the best quality sound and a really immersive experience you should probably factor in the cost of a decent pair of noise-canceling headphones or portable speakers. A few high-end gaming laptops have good speakers built-in, but it’s relatively rare.

Hard Drive Configuration
An SSD (solid-state drive) isn’t essential, but it’s definitely preferred. Because it uses memory chips instead of mechanical platters for storage, an SSD speeds up Windows boot time, overall system responsiveness, and even how fast games load.

The speed boost for booting up and loading games is well worth the extra cost if you have the cash. It’s also worth considering that SSDs are a lot tougher and will generally survive a fall unscathed, whereas a mechanical HDD with moving parts inside could lock up and die on you.

RAM Memory Size & Speed
Today, 8GB is fine for the vast majority of games on the market. It doesn’t hurt to get 16GB, but it’s difficult to find legitimate benefit for that much memory in today’s games. Faster memory (DDR3-2133/DDR4-2133 or better) also improves performance and lets you overclock your CPU with greater stability.

Our Top High-End Gaming Laptop Selections

The key-factors listed above are considered when you want to make a deep research about the performance and potential of your future ultimate gaming laptop before buying it. You can, though, vastly abridge your way by considering three additional factors:

Brand Name

Model Number

Experts’ Verdicts

As for the brand name, you need to make sure that the laptop is manufactured by a prominent and highly-reputed firm. Some of the most renowned brands are: ASUS, MSI, Alienware and Gigabyte.

The model number is important as well to make sure that your targeted gaming laptop is the latest release of your favorite manufacturer which incorporates the latest advanced technologies to improve your gaming experience.

As for the experts’ verdicts, they are the thing that will end your hesitation about a particular gaming laptop you intend to buy. Just make sure that you only take in account the verdicts of the well-known computer geeks like tomshardware, anandtech and other highly reputed technical websites.